More SSDD.

This is going to be my attempt at a…happier post. It’s a bit like pulling teeth, but I suppose I’ll get over it about halfway through.

So yesterday I went over to my godparents’ house before I had to hit the orientation for the new restaurant I’m going to be working at. I think I went over at around 10, to find them not even dressed, still fixing something for breakfast. I lied and told them I had things to do at home and would have to leave by 1:00. I brought my revolver with me and two boxes of bullets, as well as my camera, which I used non-stop, mostly to film the weird stories that tend to get passed around when we all come together. My mother ran over a squirrel that morning on the way there, while I was in the car with her. It was one of those bushy-tailed grey squirrels, and it was all kinds of stupid before it died. Immediately after my mom slams on the breaks and I hear a thunk, I look over and her face is already scrunching up and her eyes are getting watery. What do I do?

I go into a fit of laughter. And I can’t stop. For some reason it was hilarious, and as I look back in the rearview mirror at the flattened squirrel, I laugh harder. She of course yells at me to shut up, but it’s already started and I can’t stop for a good minute. I manage to say something like, “stupid…deserved it…”, and she looks mortified.

After some long conversations, my godfather was finally ready to go. Then we couldn’t find a second set of earplugs. I spent a good ten minutes in the garage poking around, but could find nothing. Instead I stuffed some tissue in my pocket and decided my hearing wasn’t worth all that much.

It was dusty, so we drove side-by-side. We stopped along the way to pick up the trail cam again, and wandered around a bit, looking at the anthill we used to pester. I filmed most of the trip, stopping to read all the no trespassing signs. It’s when I got back to the quad that karma decided to pay me a visit for laughing at the demise of one of nature’s special little creatures. As I’m talking to my godfather while he packs away his holster, I get bit by something. Right below my ass. I say ow, and start slapping at myself, and then there goes a hornet or wasp or whatever it was, flying by my head. Little shit. Then there I go, running behind some bushes to check out the damage. At first I thought I got stung because it kept stinging for a good half an hour, but I never found a stinger and it didn’t get horribly inflamed or anything. I forgot about it not long after it happened, and today there is no evidence, thankfully.

We went shooting after that incident, and I didn’t do as awfully as I thought I would, considering it’s been since winter that I’ve shot. I finished off the remainder of a box, then we had to leave because it was already 1:00. On the way home we found a deer laying in the middle of the road. She got up when we got really close, but she only stayed about 10 feet from us. I thought something was wrong with her at first, but I think she might have had a half-grown fawn waiting for her on the other side of the road. They tend to go suicidal for their young. I just sat there on my quad, looking at her and talking to her. She just shook her short little tail, and watched me, twitching her ears at my voice. She didn’t run off until I got bored and called to my godfather, and even then, she didn’t go very far. She moved through the underbrush a short ways, then stopped, looking back at me, waiting for me to go.

The orientation went fine. It was dull, actually. They handed out prizes for correct answers to the long speeches they gave. I mostly sat there quietly, though I did get randomly called on, which angered me. Much to my surprise, my voice didn’t shake, even though there were a good thirty people in the room, few of which I was acquainted with. I also had to introduce myself, which was probably the more difficult part. I don’t like giving people my name for some reason.

I go back today to help clean to get the restaurant ready for opening. I don’t have to wear my uniform, which is nice. Means I can wear long sleeves and not have to feel perpetually uncomfortable.

Control.

Or lack there of.

If this is what going insane feels like, I want nothing to do with it, because it is entirely unpleasant. It’s been a shitty few days, a shitty week. Work is fine, in fact, I’m already adjusting and strangely have found myself almost missing having something to do for hours of my day that I would otherwise be filling with sleeping (though I loathe work all the same). I come home wound up from a day of fake laughs and smiles that were had while standing in the desert heat of a kitchen. I play every second, hiding that sullen expression. Work can only provide distraction, nothing else. I come home and there it all is, waiting for me. My darkest shadow. I can’t run from it, and I wouldn’t.

I tried catharsis because of this fit of complete panic/certainty that I had. I read something about someone advising Hitler to  paint in order to displace his rage (not that it worked…) and decided that it needed to be attempted, at least. I ended up writing out my own death. Only I could make something backfire so miserably. But I was surprised to find that it helped. Something about writing out the emotion of it did quell it all enough for me to swallow down some pills and force myself into yet another long, drugged slumber—full of nightmares of course.

I keep telling myself to be prepared for this. It happens every month; severe, severe depression, the crippling kind, for at least a few days. It usually wears off and I go back to my numb, typical depression that is nearly bearable, but this time it decided to stick around for a little longer, and it was probably the worst it has ever been. It makes me hate my body because it is something I have absolutely no control over.  I get thrown back into emotion, drowned in it. And when you go forever without feeling anything, it is a horrible shock. All the crying and utter bullshit is absolutely sickening, and I end up standing in the shower with the water as hot as it will go so that I can cry and cry without anyone seeing or being suspicious when I get out and my face is red and my eyes are glassy. Fits of rage always follow soon after, where all semblance of sympathy for myself evaporates and all I want to do is beat my body into a wall and feel pain for so much as thinking I could feel anything and get away with it.

But it is waning. It will die out and I’ll be back to…whatever it is I am. Being this way, even for a short time is dangerous. It makes me a ticking time bomb, and if someone happens to say something at a moment when I don’t have a good hold on myself, I could fuck it all up. The last thing I need is to get caught in my web of lies.

Surrender.

I don’t know what I was planning. The day started off bad, probably due to yesterday’s not-so-pleasant ending. I needed to get out of the house this morning, found that I couldn’t, since I happen to be at the beck and call of my mother. My driver’s license isn’t valid right now because I’m not on the insurance, so there was no hope of even driving to town to get away from myself, not that I would be brave enough to do it anyway. 

I was stuck in the house going fucking mad. I barely slept last night, and for whatever reason decided to leave the cats out of their cage to wander around aimlessly so that there would be something alive and breathing, even if it meant hearing them crash into things at all hours. I couldn’t stop thinking or get my body to rest, and today it was the same, though with a lot less panicking and crying and a lot more anger. I had to tell a lot of lies yesterday to keep my little episode a secret; blamed my crying on hormones and a stupid story with a bad ending (I wasn’t even reading yesterday, but of course, my mother believed me). Then my godparents decided they wanted to talk to me over my webcam, and wouldn’t leave me alone about it. So I told them I was sleepy and looked like shit, to give them warning. All they said when I got on was, “You do look really tired”. It’s amazing how easy it is to put in that ridiculous cheery tone and act like I’m perfectly fucking fine. I even baked cookies yesterday for distraction.  

Today I was a belligerent fucker. I snapped at everyone and everything. Even my cat was an annoyance, though he has been hounding me since yesterday because he knows something is off. He keeps trying to crawl into my lap and I just shove him away. He finally went and fell asleep in the window after a long session of staring at me unblinkingly and getting yelled at for it. I think today I was mostly annoyed by the confirmation that no one is ever going to notice. Even crying can be written off as from something else. My pacing is normal. My moodiness isn’t unnatural to them. 

Months of living on almost nothing with binges in-between, have really fucked my body over. All I want is sugar and sleep. I end up forsaking actual food for a few bowls of ice cream and nothing else. And that only lasts two or three  hours before I feel the gnawing hunger and have to do something to keep my mind off of the sweet, sugary, packaged crap stored in the next room. But I’ve kept my weight normal enough that no one is worrying, though they certainly comment enough. I want to throw people out of windows sometimes. Needless to say, being perpetually starving has done nothing to ease my temper, and it has made my mood swings all the more terrible. I still feel fat, awfully so, which I acknowledge is just stupid. But for whatever reason, I can’t get it out of my head and I keep losing more weight as the months drag on. All of the clothes I bought recently are too big now. I have to keep altering everything so it doesn’t look like I am wearing something two sizes too large.

Yesterday all I got was the sugar, not the sleep. Today I only got the sleep. It makes me feel psychotic, being this way. Trading one sin for another and hoping that it will be enough to get me through another day. I went quading after waking early, since it became obvious that the only way I was going anywhere was if I did it myself. I nearly crashed a few times driving far too fast around winding corners. I didn’t care. I came home no better, no freer. I still feel my chains no matter how far I run, that is the sickening part. There is no getting away. I finally drugged myself up with some pills from the cabinet. Fell asleep for hours and hours, and woke with the night creeping in through the curtains and a cat milling around below my bed.

I can only ask myself these days, if there is anything worth it to make going on like this a bearable burden. I can write all I want, read, I can draw, I can fight all I want, but every single day I go to sleep knowing that it will get no better. I can integrate, I can make a life for myself, but it will not make me happy or even slightly less insane. I will never wake up feeling vaguely contented with where I am at and who I am. There will always be visions of something wretched.  

In the end I know that all I am doing is the thing I so adamantly disagree with: searching for reasons that I’m never going to find, just like everybody else.

Rift.

I want to self-sabotage. I want to ruin everything and make sure there is no hope. I admit that. I don’t want this to work; for once I want the failure, if only for a reason, a little shove.

My mom was giving me a long talk this morning, the kind that is supposed to be comforting. She was telling me what I should do, I got annoyed, and said something like, “Yes, I know”, which prompted her to say some words, that at the time, I took the wrong way.

“You always make so many mistakes.”

A long pause.

“Why, because I’m a fucking failure?”

I said it out loud, I said it. I said it in that bitter, if-you-only-knew voice, and smiled grimly even though I knew I sounded childish. Of course she says she didn’t mean it that way. She makes the point that I always come back after doing something and talk about what I should have done, that I should try to be more prepared this time, since I always forget what I’m supposed to say or ask. 

Yes, because I can’t get anything right. I know. You wouldn’t believe how acutely aware I am of it.

It was just not the time to say it, not at all. I felt like it was all glaring back at me, laughing, mocking me. Sometimes I think the past is what kills me, more so than the future. It seems to transcend time and taint any positive thoughts I have left. I let it get to me, because in some ways, I feel it’s what I need to force myself to make some sort of move and end my idleness. I play it over and over because I want to drive myself crazy. I want to snap. I want to look at the world as more vile and ugly than anything else, and see not a single redeeming quality in it. Just to make it easy. Just to make it worth leaving, even if it isn’t entirely true. I’d use a lie if it could make it simple. I’d end as a hypocrite, quite contentedly.

I went to the city, did what I needed to do. Put resumes and cover letters in everywhere. I stopped by the Humane Society, put in an application and filled out some other papers so that they might call on me to volunteer sooner or later. It was very difficult at first, walking in, asking, when I feel so fucking inadequate. I have so much trouble just talking to people. And the more time I spend alone, locked away in this room with all the curtains drawn and the sunlight chased out, the more I let it take its hold.

But the numbness has grown worse as I predicted, and for whatever reason, after the first few times of approaching yet another customer service desk, it didn’t make my hands shake. I was nervous, but it was very diluted and vague, not quite the tangible thing I’m accustomed to. Instead, there was mostly tiredness and a voice in my head that told me darkly, that it is all so pointless. That voice of pitiless truth. Maybe that was why I managed to go through with it.

There always reaches a point where exhaustion is far surpassed, and a strange residual weariness sets in. Instead of walking, you slow to a crawl, dragging your feet, dreading every single step, almost counting them. I always tell myself when I start running, “Just imagine how much it’s going to hurt the further you go”.

I’ve kind of given myself a secret ultimatum. I don’t really like where either option leads, but these days I don’t seem to like much of anything to begin with. I feel like I am sort of at this turning point; perhaps it’s age, but nothing to do with legality or anything of the sort, just an inner feeling I can’t fully put into words. Compelled, is close to what I mean. I’m being drawn in toward something, or maybe subconsciously I am pushing myself in this direction. I think I want black and white, which I know isn’t all that possible, but in this case, it is, oddly enough. I’ve made it that way. I was afforded this one piece of control, this one meaningless life to fuck up if I so choose.

 I was irritable beyond belief for most of the day (my mom got the brunt of it, unfortunately), and putting on a fake smile made me grind my teeth. It took all day to get everything done. But everyone was very friendly; I didn’t meet one person who was rude or who wasn’t willing to help, which was a very pleasant change. When I finally did finish, I was in a better mood because I hadn’t any reason to be angry with what went on. It wasn’t what I expected, and though I had no appetite, I did not feel as ill as I had expected. I wanted nothing all day but for it to be over and night to fall again.

Done, for now. And night has indeed come.

Sticks and stones.

I never went to sleep. I must have somehow built up reserves from all the nights—or should I say days—of a mere ten to twelve hours of consciousness. I may ward off the hours, but my hatred and feelings of helplessness toward it all, continue to seep into my skin. I can feel it there, spoiling, infecting like a disgusting pus from a festering wound. It’s not going to end until I’m dead and gone. Pity.

I will say with little doubt that my struggling was worthless; I see nothing coming of the brief two minute interview that was more laughable than serious. I was nothing but a bundle of overexposed nerves, tapping a foot against the leg of the chair I was sitting in, in an altogether vain attempt to hide the shaking of my rebellious limbs. Even the cruelest of conversations with myself could not calm me. Anger boiling in my gut only made the shaking turn to shivers as I waited for doom. I’d have preferred the noose; I wouldn’t have been half so nervous.

Over, done with. Like all things human. Just more worthlessness and stupidity to add to it all, more lines for me to draw in chalk as I tally up the never-ending list of cons that living comes burdened with. I don’t know why I try.

I went to a health food store, and found more joy in sorting through the strange food than I’ve felt in awhile. I was struck by how pathetic that was, that something so positively inconsequential could make me smile. But it all has ulterior motives, strings attached, especially the smiles.  Torture comes in many forms, some glaringly obvious, but easily ignored by outsiders who would traitorously deny me one of the few pleasures I still have left, that I can still call my own. We reach the danger zone, and all I want to do is laugh. They think they know me. They think that there are bones in this body that care and still are capable of compassion. I’ve never considered those ‘heroes” emotions to be ones that came preprogramed; completely learned in my opinion, and therefore nothing but another construct of this place and its cancerous people. I bleed malice these days. All the sleep in the world won’t take the dark circles of weariness from beneath my eyes. It’s been over for so long already.

I play my games for no audience but myself. It’s so blatantly narcissistic. Wait until night, which doesn’t take long anymore. I wake at 6:00 in the evening sometimes. Then it starts: the enduring. Wait, wait, wait. Night falls and I wait some more, for everyone to drift off to sleep, on a plane not connected to this one. It’s the only way my paranoia will leave me even partially; if I have reason to believe I am somehow less observed.

Nights staring at a computer screen. Nothing causes a reaction anymore. It’s all so useless now. Depravity doesn’t mean a goddamned thing, as its cage is the same that holds sway over everything: all in the eye of the beholder. To me, the only thing that is depraved or perverse is the fact that people get up in the morning believing they’re making a difference, or that the little useless shit they do all day somehow piles up on a list that is going to be reviewed after they breathe that lovely death rattle. I revel in the knowledge that it has always been over but they are merely to blind to see it, too vain, too determined, too scared.

I keep finding bits of gold in my self loathing. I find it too in those moments where my own uselessness and unimportance smile malignantly back at me. Yes, I know this. Yes, I accept it. And doesn’t that just make your skin crawl? It angers the darker side of myself, that on my best days I embrace my own worthlessness as though it were the entire point of my existence.  I don’t fight it anymore. It is the one enemy besides breathing that I have finally yielded to. I see now that my dreams were pointless, that planning beyond this is nothing but masturbation. Pining after something you can’t have, waiting for it, planning for it, only to have it torn away like everything else by the harsh winds of reality. It is useless to hope, and I wish to stop doing it. The future will be as bleak as the present; no amount of money or creature comforts are going to shift what already has come to pass.

It will not change the world. Nor will I. But more importantly…it will never change me.

I am already set in stone.

Punishment that never ends.

Sometimes I tell myself that it is alright that I want to die, that there is nothing wrong with that. This place is far from wonderful, far from perfect, and in truth it can be close to Hell. If there are levels in Hell, I must be in one of the easier ones. Even so, it’s still Hell, and I am still the person I always was, with no drive, no dreams, no goals. I live out of pure boredom and a sense of false, all-consuming loyalty, nothing more. Every reason I give is just another lie, another strike on my private record.

So many strikes the paper looks black.

I am disgrace. I plague even myself with my own existence. An existence that is taxing even on me. If I am such a burden to myself, it must be twice as worse for the ones who hold me up. On my own I would collapse; a malformed structure that was never meant to stand. I was designed all wrong, and all of my “improvements” have only suceeded in worsening matters.

School draws nearer. I know that my pathetic reasoning is starting to burn from my anger…the rage at being trapped in a cage that is inescapable except for one path. I don’t want this. I never wanted this. I’d take anything over this. I want it to end.

Anxiety eats at sanity
Unwelcome cannibalism of self
Hatred that never stops.

I will never feel normal. There’s never going to be a day where I wake up and it all feels okay. I will never have that day, not even a single one.

I have to say another lie: it makes me stronger.
The torture makes me stronger.
My chosen torture makes me stronger.

Today is not the day to die.